Strawberries

In the gardens at home, it's strawberry season. Threading through the rocks and flowers of the front garden, in clumps and barrels by the vegetables, all behind the grapevine row, the berries must be ripe by now.

My family called strawberries my birthday fruit; end of June, they're growing sweet and everywhere, spreading into the path with thin green runners like weeds.

They're not mine anymore, the strawberries, but they're still the purview of little girls. Low growing in spottable red, familiar, and large enough that you can fill a bucket even while eating every other. The cousins come and it's like a day of magic at the fairyland house where I grew up.

Red ripe berries among sweet flowers, water from the house, and a silent soft cat threading by the blooming tree while three little girls pluck berries into the plastic jam pails tired around their necks.